The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering celebrated its tenth anniversary August 17 in Carmel Valley with tributes to Bizzarrini, Iso Rivolta and with the unveiling of two almost-complete Bugatti recreations/restorations, in addition to the usual couple hundred great cars and motorcycles on display. The Bugattis were really cool.

Jim Hull's Type 57S Torpedo Competition was originally shown at the Paris Auto Salon in 1935. When it failed to sell at that show it was taken back to the factory, the body was removed and, at some point, destroyed. Working with only a couple of surviving photos as his guide, Hull and company spent the last seven years recreating the body in riveted magnesium and attaching it to that original frame. The car had a matte finish at The Quail to preserve its delicate magnesium skin. Once it's completed, Hull wants to take it out to a long runway in the Mojave and see how fast it'll go.

“Should be fun,” he said with a smile.

Only a few feet away was another Bugatti project, this one another painstaking refinishing job not yet completed but which still promised to be beautiful when all the metal is shaped and all the rivets stamped. Peter Mullin, founder of the stunning Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard and owner of perhaps the world's greatest collection of French cars of the 1930s Art Deco Movement, brought a 1939 Type 64. Mullin started with the original chassis and only an idea of what the car would have or should look like. To bring that notion into form, Mullin enlisted the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Stewart Reed Design and Automobile Metal Shaping Company in Michigan to do the job. The final exterior of flowing fenders and a fixed roof came as an amalgamation of the ideas of seven Art Center Students, Reed's work and Mullin's own thoughts about the shape. All the metal was hand-formed on an English wheel and through various manual labor techniques involving hammers and sandbags to get it to fit over a full-sized wooden buck, the latter which was also on display. When complete, like Hull's Bugatti, this one will also be driven. We tried to get Mullin to commit to a drag race against Hull's Bugatti but that was inconclusive. Both are beautiful cars.

A brace of Bizzarrinis graced the east end of The Quail grounds while sometime-Bizzarrini-collaborator Peiro Rivolta held court across the lawn amidst a sizeable collection of cars bearing his name. This is the 50th anniversary of the founding of Iso Rivolta.

“It is wonderful to see so many of them,” Rivolta said, surrounded by more than a dozen Grifos and even an Iso Rivolta Formula 1 entry.

One good thing about The Quail is that they limit ticket sales 3000 to quell the crowds. Another good thing is the food - an entry ticket allows you to feast on a wide variety of cuisine from all over the world and all of it is delicioius. If we had to whine about something, and we're really reaching to do even this, we'd say they could have limited the number of times that huge helicopter could loudly circle the grounds, something it seemed to do for much of the day. And maybe a little more rarity and variety in the balance of the show cars, which consisted of very nice but not-too-uncommon Porsches, Jags and Panteras. But that could be nit-picking. Founder of The Quail and the man on whose property the event is held, Sir Michael Kadoorie, said it best when he officially opened this year's show: “The most important thing is to have a great day.” And that we all did.

Check out the gallery above for a veritable cornucopia of automotive decadence.

Monterey car week is packed with car shows, vintage racing and car auctions. Autoweek will be there providing streaming photo galleries and live coverage of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, historic racing at Laguna Seca, the Monterey car auctions and plenty more. Go to Autoweek's Pebble Beach home page for complete coverage and live updates.